Letter to the Editor 4/15 #1

To the Editor,

For the sake of maintaining the open dialogue that Steve Kaszycki promoted… To the Editor,

For the sake of maintaining the open dialogue that Steve Kaszycki promoted in his letter to the editor in the April 13 issue of The Pitt News, and as a woman who identifies with the queer community, I cannot remain silent. Both Kaszycki’s and Jeff Abraham’s letters presented myths about the institution of marriage and the abilities of gay and lesbian couples to procreate as fact.

Simply put, marriage might not appear to be a right for heterosexual men, but it has always been a right and source of social and legal benefits for women who have been historically and systematically denied rights and privileges. Historically, women married in order to receive rights such as the ability to own property and care for their children. Kaszycki and Abraham argue, from their heterosexual male standpoints, for the traditional procreative purposes of marriage. But this promotion of the assessment that marriage is not a right is simply a way to defend homophobia.

The issue here is not semantics, the very untrue notion that gay and lesbian couples can’t procreate or faulty definitions of progress. The issue is a deep set belief that LGBT people don’t deserve a right to enjoy the ups and downs that all married people experience.

Abraham is correct in saying that not all change means progress. However, this is not an issue of progress combating tradition, but rather the manifestation of our cultural fear of ‘others.’ I say it is time we recognize the privileges we are granted as brought to us by our sex, race, class and sexuality and admit to the injustice in actively denying those same rights to other citizens of this country. Instead of waiting to see what history tells us, like Abraham calls for, let’s make history and collectively reject the hateful notion that queer people don’t deserve the same legitimacy as straight people.

Tamar Toledano

School of Arts and Sciences

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